The Things In The Basement

My mother and I have been meaning to tackle the basement for some time now.

...Like...

Years.

It's been years and we haven't wanted to actually do this.  Mold and gross and spiders and cat shit and horrible.   That's the basement. 

I'm going to add to this post after a shower and probably sleep...

I can't even really breathe right.  It's just dust and chaos in my lungs.

For now, I leave you with this:

A three feet tall Mickey Mouse.   He is one of two.  I don't mean that my mom has a Mickey and a Minnie.  No.  No no.  I mean she has two Mickey Mice from like a bazillion years apart.  They are both symbols of my father's love.

At this point, I don't know which is the stronger symbol.

The fact that he got her not one, but TWO of these,
or the fact that he allows them to still hang around the house...
...
Including this one who looks WAY too happy living in the basement.

Later, maybe tomorrow... I'll draw things and explain this guy:

But not tonight. 

EDIT:  Okay, "tomorrow" became like half a year later but shut up. 

First of all, I was getting a lot of joy from getting rid of some of my sister's old PETA propaganda stuff.  I'm all for protecting against animal testing and of course any killing of animals should be humane, but let's face it, those people are mostly crazy.  
The PETA people are the people who DESPERATELY want everyone to be vegan, regardless of the health requirements others may have.  I, for example, would be living off of supplements and thus would probably be even more underweight and feeling like garbage than I already am.  Being allergic to nuts and chickpeas and being intolerant to soy means I need to not be vegan in order to live a resonably comfortable life.   I view these folks much the same way I view members of extremist sects of religions.

*Ahem* 

So, the basement.  

 At one point, Mom started playing with a Polly Pocket and ranting to herself about how toys should be wooden and not plastic. 

 I found my PEZ collection.  ...All of them.  Oh my fuck.  I'll need to post photos to show you all.  

EDIT: LOOKIT: 

I used to have even more.  This is what is left. 

EDIT to the EDIT: OH SHIT I FOUND ANOTHER ONE

EDIT TO THAT OTHER EDIT: HOLY BAJEEZUS THIS ONE WASN'T EVEN OPENED: 

 It's like a year later and I'm still finding these??? 


Lezee... What else? 

OH!  The music box! 

The creepy baby carriage music box! 

It just wouldn't stop.  Creepy AND never stopping.  Like some horrible, haunting background music in a horror movie where a child has just asked you to play but they've been dead for eight years.

Then my sister came down (Nevermind that she refuses to go into the basement due to spiders in order to do her own laundry, but she'll come down when we are trying to clean out the place...) and she immediately turned the damn thing back on when it had finally shut off.  

There was also a Whatever Happened To Baby Jane moment of her arguing with my mother about whether it was mine or hers to begin with.  According to Mom, creepy-never-stopping-baby-carriage-from-Hell was mine.  You know what?  My sister can have it.

...Then my sister dug through the garbage for a coloring book, farted loudly, and then went back upstairs.  

Of course, that coloring book kept her entertained for days, so who am I to judge. 

To state again here...  She basically came down just to fart at us and leave.

Finally, I found my old space heater.  It has since been cleaned by Rob and is being used in the apartment on its fan mode, as it is now Summer.  

This thing is just a little box but I love it.  For months between this original post and the edit, I had used this in a desperate attempt to keep my at the time very lonely and not-retaining-heat self warm. 

It's waaaaay too hot right in front of it, but freezing to either side in the dead of Winter until the air circulates.  As a result, I wound up curling up like a cat and happily burning myself.         

There was also a moment of Mom picking up a book and saying, "Oh!  Legacy of Love!  ... Oh.  Not what I thought."        

EDIT: OH BAJEEZUS WE FOUND ANOTHER ONE

Laundry Day Is A Very Dangerous Day

And really any day in this household is a chaotic mess.  ...They mean well.

Living at home again is very odd on several levels, beyond being something I hoped would never happen.  I'm in my mid twenties, so I'm very content with the idea of at least pretending to be a real adult type person, but these are strange times in our economy, as well as in my life.
  
I forgot about the dangers of doing laundry here, for example.
Going down the basement steps with a hamper:

Spiders in the basement:

Also, the dangers of a bored out of her mind cat.  This is a very pretty cat:

She is an indoor cat, and lived with dogs and another indoor cat who was de-clawed, but she was never de-clawed herself.  She was also raised by a dog, for the most part.  These each come with their own special problems.
Mainly though, her playfulness causes a lot of danger.  If you've ever seen "Simon's Cat," you'll quickly get the idea.

Pain when feeling playful and one is not wearing shoes:

Face planting on stairs when she feels like playing at bottom and you are going up:

Face planting with everything broken when she feels like playing at the top of the stairs:

Lately, she has also started trolling my family.
We've decided this is all because she doesn't get enough attention.
By “we” I mean my family has been watching cat shows on television too much.  The vet said she's healthy, so yeah... this shouldn't be happening.
She'll use the litter box, but still shit wherever she damn well pleases. 
She'll shit by the computer, by my parent's bed...  Every goddamn place. 

She also has an issue with my sister's dog.  This, I find understandable.  The dog looks like a failed muppet.
It's like something Jim Henson shat out on an off day and went “Ew.  That'll never work on Fraggle Rock.  Better put the sad little pathetic thing up for adoption before Gonzo accidentally blows it up or something.”

To clarify, this is a “hairless Chinese Crested” and it's the same breed as the dog once voted ugliest dog in the world.  That particular dog was more like what my sister's would be after reading the Necronomicon, but as this particular “dog” ages, it's getting close to that anyway. 

Still, she's a smart stupid little thing.  Smart because she is very manipulative for a dog.  Stupid because we, as a family, aren't great at training things.

I'm amazed that I can take a shit by myself.  ...Though I learned by getting a treat of M&Ms every time I did it.  ...That says something.

So, while the dog adds a creepy factor (and likes to go for my kneecaps when I enter the house) and the cat is sharp... there are also the other things in the house.  We have a turtle who my parents desperately wish to get rid of (it lead to the death of the other turtle), a snake that is so freaking lazy that it doesn't even want us to try to pretend the food is alive anymore, and bugs.  Some bugs, like my sister's pet hissing cockroaches, are on purpose:

Some are not. 

Seriously.  So many freaking spiders.  I honestly don't mind spiders, until there are tens of thousands of them in my face.

They have hammocks now.  It's like a freaking spider hotel.

I mind silverfish a lot less now than I used to, but I think it's because I looked them up and took the time to learn about what they really do.  Cockroaches are neat to me now too.  ...Spiders just get worse the more I know about them.

EDIT: The actual web-hammock:

I had also forgotten about the kind of non-sequiturs you hear in this house.  Things like “It's on fire again” and “I didn't know if it was poison ivy, so I touched it just in case” or even “Dad, I'm trying to learn how to wire a cat's jaw shut!”  ...Most of these are from my older sister.  The fire related ones tend to be my father.  Either way, the fuck.